Swiss traders’ shenanigans on the buying of Nigeria and Africa’s crude oil without transparency and accountability
In Nigeria, Swiss companies bought oil worth $37 billion over the three years, an amount equal to more than 18 percent of the national government’s revenues. Payments of this scale that affect the development prospects of poor countries require public oversight, which has been largely missing in most of the scenarios described in this report. Transparency provides citizens with a tool to hold their government to account for the management of their country’s most valuable asset. To achieve transparency, we recommend the following: •…

Sometime in 2006, the celebrated Nigerian poet Odia Ofeimun applied for a visa to travel to Britain. The British consulate in Lagos rejected the application. The insult was compounded by a consulate official who wrote on the application: “He claims to be a writer.”
Ofeimun is a poet, dramatist, polemicist, public intellectual and iconoclast all rolled into one. Everyone knows him, except the good folks at the British consulate. He lives in Lagos in a spacious bungalow whose living room is stacked with piles of newspapers and magazines.
When I visited, there was a flat-screen TV at…

Nigeria from Brain drain to Brain gain
Now that Nigeria has completed what is perceived by many as a relatively free and fair election, even though the elections cannot be termed as uneventful or completely free or short of its usual short-comings such as elections fraud, religious riots, as is common with many elections, it can still be judged a success by most standards.
It appears that Nigeria’s Independent electoral Commission and the electorate are determined more than ever to continue on this trajectory of free and fair elections that is needed to entrench their democracy which although still in…

Nigeria is ready to move forward
Nigeria at 50 is trying to mature into adulthood. Although slow but it is almost certain that when Nigeria finally gets it right, this sleepy and now about to be awaken giant will be noticed. The awaken Nigeria will not only be noticed by many nations in Africa who after one disappointment after another by Nigeria almost wrote her off but also by the great powers of the West.
Most Nigerians agree including the new breed of leaders that for Nigeria to turn away from the past, it cannot be business as usual. Nigeria must harness…

In order for a Nation to realize her dreams for greatness, there must be committed men and brave but fearless men who have vision and passion and above all must be very intelligent and great thinkers. Unfortunately Nigerian past have lacked most of the critical attributes listed. We have possessed mediocrity in abundance and that is the main reason why Nigeria has remained stagnant in the comity of Nations or what I call arrested development. Lack of basic infrastructures, a comatose education system, and top heavy leadership selected with the only qualification of ethnic bias, pervasive corruption, thieves in high…

Democracy in Nigeria @ ten although not a complete failure is still not out of the ICU-Intensive Care Unit. All the major and critical indicators of political transitions to a true democracy are still missing in the political landscape of Nigeria. Nigeria is like a sick child that has the attention and care of a specialist doctor but continuously and stubbornly refuses to take the prescribed medications that will see her out of the intensive care unit.
It is disheartening that Nigeria with so much capital and human resources knows the right things to do but for some personal and…

Ask the average man or woman on the streets of Nigeria of what benefit is Democracy to him or her ten years later, when men and women who have given their best 30 to 50 years of the service to their Fatherland are allowed to die waiting for their retirement benefits such as their basic monthly pension entitlements. Retirees in their seventies and older who in more civilized societies are accorded respect and dignity they deserve especially as senior citizens through the state provision of free or highly subsidized health care, food, shelter, and transportation, while their counterparts in Nigeria…